Devastation in Europe and a Harvest of Destruction:

How did the war affect many cities?
What displaced many Europeans?

These images are of the destruction of Europe in World War II.

• Individual cities
  • A few great cities in Europe generally spared from WWII (Paris, Rome, Brussels)
  • London
    
    • Battle of Britain destroyed most of London
    • The first night of the German blitz, 430 civilians were killed and 1600 wounded. This continued for 76 nights. As a result, many people chose to leave London—reducing the population by 25%. However, those that remained tended to be poorer and unable to leave.
    • Beginning on September 7, 1940, German air raids and bombings disrupted London. In the first 24 days, the Germans dropped 5,300 tons of explosives in an effort to destroy British morale.
    • Although the main offensive of 1940-1941 decreased after Germany began to shift its focus to Russia, sporadic raids and large bombings continued throughout the war.
    • “Over the next nine months, the Blitz killed more than 43,000 civilians. For a year, the citizens of Britain were effectively front-line soldiers in a battle which united the country against a hated enemy.”-Joshua Levine, Historian
  • Warsaw
    • In 1939 population of approx. 1.3 million. In Jan. 1945, 153,000.
    • The city had one of the world’s largest Jewish population, and 450,00 Jews were forced into the isolated Warsaw Ghetto.
    • July 1942—mass exterminations began. Approximately 300,000 sent to the Treblinka death camp.
    • 200,000 died in Warsaw Uprising of 1944
    • During World War II, 85% of Warsaw’s left bank buildings were destroyed. About 10,455 buildings, 923 historical buildings (94%), 25 churches, 14 libraries (including the national library), 81 elementary schools, 64 high schools, Warsaw University, and most monuments were also destroyed.
  • Berlin
    • 95% of central area destroyed by Allied bombs
    • “Wherever we looked we saw desolation. It was like a city of the dead.” (US officer)
• General Consequences
  • Civilians stayed where they were and attempt to move on, living in damaged homes or apartments, or shelters constructed from the rubble. Many had no water or electricity, and only small amounts of food.
  • Many others left—including POWs, those who had been in concentration camps, and refugees (many countries had changed borders, and they now lacked a country to call home); these people wandered around Europe, looking for a new home or their families.
  • Millions of ethnic Germans expelled from newly liberated Eastern European countries. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish survivors wanted to find a safe home beyond where they considered their “homeland.” Other refugees wanted to escape communism.
  • The war left Europe in ruins—killing almost 40 million Europeans, two-thirds of those civilians. Hundreds of cities were almost entirely destroyed, as was much of the countryside. Many were left homeless.
  • Overall, the war killed 60 million, one-third of those in the Soviet Union. Additionally, 50 million became homeless, and property damage amounted to billions of dollars (USD).

Misery Continues After the War:

Lack of food, destruction of roads, factories lead to?

• People were homeless and living on the streets. Misery could be found everywhere. Every country involved had been bombed severely and the infrastructure was completely destroyed. Countries had to try and rebuild everything, including the economy. This was particularly hard because of the scarcity of resources and the high cost of the war.
• The political stability also needed to be restored. After America accomplished their goal of creating or restoring democratic governments in countries all over the world, they established an anti-soviet alliance with Germany and many other European nations. This alliance was known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NA

  68 families, altogether, 320 people, lived in the burned out buses in Tokyo

  TO. Stalin retaliated by creating the Warsaw Pact a military alliance with other communist countries. These alliance were meant to protect each side against the other if conflict broke out.
• Not long after, tensions rose d

  Destruction in Tokyo after a bombing

  ue to the invention of the hydrogen and atom bomb. Feuding broke out between the US and the Soviet Union, leading to the Cold War.

People suffer from?

• People suffered from depression caused by the constant bombing and millions of deaths in the war. People lived in the streets with no money, shelter, food or clean water. Millions were also uprooted from their homes or were left living in the rubble of bombed cities.
• Survivors of the Holocaust had no place to go until the establishment of Israel. They were refugees who, along with millions of other people, had to be resettled.
• Years would pass before their lives would be returned to normal and the nations achieved some stability.

Post-War Politics and Government:

• Some countries such as Norway, Berlin, Holland, & Denmark went back to the governments they had before the war
• Italy, Germany, and France needed new leaders

• In results of this a new party was formed though out France and northern Italy.
• In the beginning many people like the communist party until they had violent strikes when the economy recover.
• Causing many people to vote for the anticommunist parties
• At their height of their power it was one-third popular vote

Nuremberg Trials:

The Nuremberg trials were the post WWII war crime trials of Prominent Nazi leaders after the capitulation of Nazi Germany.

• The trial was held between November 21, 1945 to October 1, 1946, 22 Nazis were tried at Nuremberg, and eleven defendants were sentenced to death by hanging.
• All the major warring countries (the UK, France, the US, and the USSR) sent representatives to individually prosecute the Nazis.
• Many Nazi war criminals fled Germany to luxurious South American hotspots, where they could be protected, like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Some notable defendants were Albert Speer, the head of the Reich Armaments Ministry, and a close friend of Hitler's, Karl Doenitz, the de facto head of the Nazi Government after Hitler committed suicide, Hermann Goering, the leader of the Luftwaffe, and President of the Reichstag, and Wilheim Keitel and Alfred Jodl of the German High Command.

• These people were the head prosecutors of the trial:
• Sir Hartley Shawcross (GBR)
• Robert H. Jackson (USA)
• Lieutenant-General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko(USSR)
• Francois de Menthon (France)
• Auguste Champetier de Ribes (France)

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The defendants and their punishments:

• Bormann, Martin (sentenced to death/ was already killed escaping Berlin)
• Doenitz, Karl (served 10 yrs.)
• Frank, Hans (hanged on October 16, 1946)
• Frick, Wilhelm (hanged on October 16, 1946)
• Fritzsche, Hans (acquitted)
• Funk, Walther (life in prison)
• Goering, Hermann (sentenced to hanging/ committed suicide)
• Hess, Rudolf (life in prison)
• Jodl, Alfred (hanged on October 16, 1946)
• Kaltenbrunner, Ernst (hanged on October 16, 1946)
• Keitel, Wilhelm (hanged on October 16, 1946)
• Neurath, Konstantin von (sentenced to 15 yrs. in Prison)
• Papen, Franz von (acquitted)
• Raeder, Erich (life in prison)
• Ribbentrop, Joachim von (hanged October 16, 1946)
• Rosenberg, Alfred (hanged October 16, 1946)
• Sauckel, Fritz (hanged October 16, 1946)
• Schacht, Hjalmar (acquitted)
• Schirach, Baldur von (sentenced to 20 yrs. in prison)
• Seyss-Inquart, Arthur (hanged October 16, 1946)
• Speer, Albert (served 20 yrs. in prison)
• Streicher, Julius (hanged October 16, 1946)

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